Another sex scandal in Azerbaijan: how and where is this information disseminated?

Sex scandal in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani social media is abuzz with discussion about yet another intimate video which has made its way onto the web.

The video footage concerns the personal life of the daughter of an opposition leader, Jamil Hasanli.

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Who is Jamil Hasanli?

The 69-year-old historian worked at Baku State University between 1980 and 2011.

In April 1993, he was appointed adviser to the President of Azerbaijan Abulfaz Elchibey, but two months later he was dismissed by the new government.

He later served in the Azerbaijani parliament in 2000 and 2005.

In 2013, he was elected chairman of the National Council of Democratic Forces and in 2015 was nominated as the only candidate for the National Council in the presidential elections in the country, won 5.53% of the vote. Hasanli said the elections were falsified and did not recognize their results.

Currently he is the chairman of the National Council. He is married and is the father of four children.

“There is nothing unusual here.”

“My daughter Gunel is 38 years old and she divorced her husband over 10 years ago. She can have her own personal life and she can start a new family. Nobody can forbid her, not even me. There is nothing unusual here.

Immorality is when you poke your nose into the intimate life of others, mobilize state security agencies for this and use it as a means of political blackmail,” Jamil Hasanli wrote on his Facebook page, responding to the event.

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“No doubt where this is from…”

JAMnews asked an IT specialist to explain how such videos appear on Telegram to begin with.

The expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said that it is enough to pay attention to the time of publication of such content in order to understand where it comes from.

“If you pay attention, posts on such telegram channels appear at certain intervals, and this time corresponds to working hours in Baku. Very rarely does something new appear on such channels on the weekends.

In other words, someone works on these channels as if they go to work, say, to some state enterprise. From this point of view, I personally have no doubts about where these channels are controlled from.

Another interesting detail of such sources: these channels operate in private mode. That is, you will not find them by searching, you need a direct link to the channel. In other words, these channels are not public. Because it is quite easy to complain about public channels, and they will soon be blocked.”

Comments

Many civil society activists and prominent journalists have expressed their views on the scandal. Here are some of them:

“Jamil Hasanli demonstrates an example of dignity. Respect!” – investigative journalist Khadija Ismail.

“Jamil Hasanli is one of the most valuable people in our country. You cannot humiliate him with your immoral methods of struggle,” journalist Aliya Yagublu.

“It is the greatest immorality to shoot and distribute hidden videos of children, to use state bodies for this. All these steps do not diminish respect for Jamil Hasanli, on the contrary, they increase it,” political activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev.